Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Favourite Dialogues from The Fountainhead - Part 3
"Here’s a sample : ’I’m a respectable woman and mother of five children and I certainly don’t think I want to bring up my children with your newspaper. Have taken same for fourteen years, but now that you show that you’re the kind of man that has no decency and making a mockery of the holy institution of marriage which is to commit adultery with a fallen woman also another man’s wife who gets married in a black dress as she jolly well ought to, I won’t read your newspaper any more as you’re not a man fit for children, and I’m certainly disappointed in you. Very truly yours. Mrs. Thomas Parker.’ I read it to him. He just laughed."
"Uh-huh,"
"What’s got into him?"
"It’s nothing that got into him, Alvah. It’s something that got out at last."
Alvah Scarret read the story and liked it so much that he lost all caution. "Run it off, Alvah," Sally Brent urged him, "just have a proof run off and leave it on his desk. He’ll okay it, see if he won’t." That evening Sally Brent was fired. Her costly contract was bought off--it had three more years to run--and she was told never to enter the Banner Building again for any purpose
whatsoever.
Scarret protested in panic: "Gail, you can’t fire Sally! Not Sally!"
"When I can’t fire anyone I wish on my paper, I’ll close it and blow up the God-damn building,"
"That life story of the Bronx housewife who murdered her husband’s young mistress is pretty sordid, Gail. But I think there’s something dirtier--the curiosity of the people who like to read about it. And then there’s something dirtier still--the people who pander to that curiosity. Actually, it was that housewife--she has piano legs and such a baggy neck in her pictures--who made this necklace possible. It’s a beautiful necklace. I shall be proud to wear it."
"That’s one way of looking at it. There’s another. I like to think that I took the worst refuse of the human spirit--the mind of that housewife and the minds of the people who like to read about her--and I made of it this necklace on your shoulders. I like to think that I was an alchemist capable of performing so great a purification."
"You’d better dress, Gail. We’re going to the theater tonight."
"Fine. Black tie or white?"
"White. I have tickets for No Skin Off Your Nose. They were very hard to get."
It was too much; it seemed too ludicrous to be part of this moment’s contest between them. He broke down by laughing frankly, in helpless disgust.
"Good God, Dominique, not that one!"
"Why, Gail, it’s the biggest hit in town. Your own critic, Jules Fougler"--he stopped laughing. He understood--"said it was the great play of our age. Ellsworth Toohey said it was the fresh voice of the coming new world. Alvah Scarret said it was not written in ink, but in the milk of human kindness. Sally Brent--before you fired her--said it made her laugh with a lump in her throat. Why, it’s the godchild of the Banner. I thought you would certainly want to see it."
"Yes, of course," he said. He got up and went to dress.
"Gail, will you forgive me?"
"What have I to forgive you?"
"Everything. And tonight."
"That was your privilege. The condition on which you married me. To make me pay for the Banner."
"I don’t want to make you pay for it."
"Why don’t you want it any more?"
"It can’t be paid for."
"Dominique. What was it?"
"The pain that stops at a certain point? Nothing. Only that you had no right to say it. The men who have, pay for that right, a price you can’t afford. But it doesn’t matter now. Say it if you wish. I have no right to say it either."
"I like to see a man standing at the foot of a skyscraper," he said. "It makes him no bigger than an ant--isn’t that the correct bromide for the occasion? The God-damn fools! It’s man who made it--the whole incredible mass of stone and steel. It doesn’t dwarf him, it makes him greater than the structure. It reveals his true dimensions to the world. What we love about these buildings, Dominique,is the creative faculty, the heroic in man."
The hills rose to the sky around them, as a wall of protection. And they had another protection--the architect who walked among them, down the snow or the grass of the hillsides, over the boulders and the piled planks, to the drafting tables, to the derricks, to the tops of rising walls--the man who had made this possible--the thought in the mind of that man--and not the content of that thought, nor the result, not the vision that had created Monadnock Valley, nor the will that had made it real--but the method of his thought, the rule of its function--the method and rule which were not like those of the
world beyond the hills.
"Bradley and his gang. Of Monadnock Valley." Mallory spoke with a forced,vicious,self-torturing precision. "They thought it was worthless--from the first. They got the land practically for nothing--they thought it was no place for a resort at all--out of the way, with no bus lines or movie theaters around--they thought the time wasn’t right and the public wouldn’t go for it. They made a lot of noise and sold snares to a lot of wealthy suckers--it was just a huge fraud. They sold two hundred percent of the place. They got twice what it cost them to build it. They were certain it would fail. They wanted it to fail. They expected no profits to distribute. They had a nice scheme ready for how to get out of it when the place went bankrupt. They were prepared for anything--except for seeing it turn into the kind of success it is. And they couldn’t go on--because now they’d have to pay their backers twice the amount the place earned each year. And it’s earning plenty. And they thought they had arranged for certain failure. Howard, don’t you understand? They chose you as the worst architect they could find!"
Roark threw his head back and laughed.
"Howard, think of Monadnock. Close your eyes and see it. And then think that the men who ordered it, believed it was the worst thing they could build! Howard, there’s something wrong, something very terribly wrong in the world if you were given your greatest job--as a filthy joke!"
"We live in our minds, and existence is the attempt to bring that life into physical reality, to state it in gesture and form. For the man who understands this, a house he owns is a statement of his life. If he doesn’t build, when he has the means, it’s because his life has not been what he wanted."
"I can’t do what you’re asking for."
"What do you think I’m asking?"
"That I slap your face."
"Why don’t you?"
"I can’t pretend an anger I don’t feel," said Roark. "It’s not pity. It’s much more cruel than anything I could do. Only I’m not doing it in order to be cruel. If I slapped your face, you’d forgive me for the Stoddard Temple."
"Is it you who should seek forgiveness?"
"No. You wish I did. You know that there’s an act of forgiveness involved. You’re not clear about the actors. You wish I would forgive you--or demand payment, which is the same thing--and you believe that that would close the record. But, you see, I have nothing to do with it. I’m not one of the actors. It doesn’t matter what I do or feel about it now. You’re not thinking of me. I can’t help you. I’m not the person you’re afraid of just now."
"Who is?"
"Yourself."
"Who gave you the right to say all this?"
"You did."
"Well, go on."
"Do you wish the rest?"
"Go on."
"I think it hurts you to know that you’ve made me suffer. You wish you hadn’t. And yet there’s something that frightens you more. The knowledge that I haven’t suffered at all."
"Go on."
"The knowledge that I’m neither kind nor generous now, but simply indifferent. It frightens you, because you know that things like the Stoddard Temple always require payment--and you see that I’m not paying for it. You were astonished that I accepted this commission. Do you think my acceptance required courage? You needed far greater courage to hire me. You see, this is what I think of the Stoddard Temple. I’m through with it. You’re not."
"What’s the matter, Gail?"
"Good evening, dear. Why?"
"You look happy. That’s not the word. But it’s the nearest."
"’Light’ is nearer. I feel light, thirty years lighter. Not that I’d want to be what I was thirty years ago. One never does. What the feeling means is only a sense of being carried back intact, as one is now, back to the beginning. It’s quite illogical and impossible and wonderful."
"What the feeling usually means is that you’ve met someone. A woman as a rule."
"I have. Not a woman. A man. Dominique, you’re very beautiful tonight. But I always say that. It’s not what I wanted to say. It’s this: I am very happy tonight that you’re so beautiful."
"Uh-huh,"
"What’s got into him?"
"It’s nothing that got into him, Alvah. It’s something that got out at last."
Alvah Scarret read the story and liked it so much that he lost all caution. "Run it off, Alvah," Sally Brent urged him, "just have a proof run off and leave it on his desk. He’ll okay it, see if he won’t." That evening Sally Brent was fired. Her costly contract was bought off--it had three more years to run--and she was told never to enter the Banner Building again for any purpose
whatsoever.
Scarret protested in panic: "Gail, you can’t fire Sally! Not Sally!"
"When I can’t fire anyone I wish on my paper, I’ll close it and blow up the God-damn building,"
"That life story of the Bronx housewife who murdered her husband’s young mistress is pretty sordid, Gail. But I think there’s something dirtier--the curiosity of the people who like to read about it. And then there’s something dirtier still--the people who pander to that curiosity. Actually, it was that housewife--she has piano legs and such a baggy neck in her pictures--who made this necklace possible. It’s a beautiful necklace. I shall be proud to wear it."
"That’s one way of looking at it. There’s another. I like to think that I took the worst refuse of the human spirit--the mind of that housewife and the minds of the people who like to read about her--and I made of it this necklace on your shoulders. I like to think that I was an alchemist capable of performing so great a purification."
"You’d better dress, Gail. We’re going to the theater tonight."
"Fine. Black tie or white?"
"White. I have tickets for No Skin Off Your Nose. They were very hard to get."
It was too much; it seemed too ludicrous to be part of this moment’s contest between them. He broke down by laughing frankly, in helpless disgust.
"Good God, Dominique, not that one!"
"Why, Gail, it’s the biggest hit in town. Your own critic, Jules Fougler"--he stopped laughing. He understood--"said it was the great play of our age. Ellsworth Toohey said it was the fresh voice of the coming new world. Alvah Scarret said it was not written in ink, but in the milk of human kindness. Sally Brent--before you fired her--said it made her laugh with a lump in her throat. Why, it’s the godchild of the Banner. I thought you would certainly want to see it."
"Yes, of course," he said. He got up and went to dress.
"Gail, will you forgive me?"
"What have I to forgive you?"
"Everything. And tonight."
"That was your privilege. The condition on which you married me. To make me pay for the Banner."
"I don’t want to make you pay for it."
"Why don’t you want it any more?"
"It can’t be paid for."
"Dominique. What was it?"
"The pain that stops at a certain point? Nothing. Only that you had no right to say it. The men who have, pay for that right, a price you can’t afford. But it doesn’t matter now. Say it if you wish. I have no right to say it either."
"I like to see a man standing at the foot of a skyscraper," he said. "It makes him no bigger than an ant--isn’t that the correct bromide for the occasion? The God-damn fools! It’s man who made it--the whole incredible mass of stone and steel. It doesn’t dwarf him, it makes him greater than the structure. It reveals his true dimensions to the world. What we love about these buildings, Dominique,is the creative faculty, the heroic in man."
The hills rose to the sky around them, as a wall of protection. And they had another protection--the architect who walked among them, down the snow or the grass of the hillsides, over the boulders and the piled planks, to the drafting tables, to the derricks, to the tops of rising walls--the man who had made this possible--the thought in the mind of that man--and not the content of that thought, nor the result, not the vision that had created Monadnock Valley, nor the will that had made it real--but the method of his thought, the rule of its function--the method and rule which were not like those of the
world beyond the hills.
"Bradley and his gang. Of Monadnock Valley." Mallory spoke with a forced,vicious,self-torturing precision. "They thought it was worthless--from the first. They got the land practically for nothing--they thought it was no place for a resort at all--out of the way, with no bus lines or movie theaters around--they thought the time wasn’t right and the public wouldn’t go for it. They made a lot of noise and sold snares to a lot of wealthy suckers--it was just a huge fraud. They sold two hundred percent of the place. They got twice what it cost them to build it. They were certain it would fail. They wanted it to fail. They expected no profits to distribute. They had a nice scheme ready for how to get out of it when the place went bankrupt. They were prepared for anything--except for seeing it turn into the kind of success it is. And they couldn’t go on--because now they’d have to pay their backers twice the amount the place earned each year. And it’s earning plenty. And they thought they had arranged for certain failure. Howard, don’t you understand? They chose you as the worst architect they could find!"
Roark threw his head back and laughed.
"Howard, think of Monadnock. Close your eyes and see it. And then think that the men who ordered it, believed it was the worst thing they could build! Howard, there’s something wrong, something very terribly wrong in the world if you were given your greatest job--as a filthy joke!"
"We live in our minds, and existence is the attempt to bring that life into physical reality, to state it in gesture and form. For the man who understands this, a house he owns is a statement of his life. If he doesn’t build, when he has the means, it’s because his life has not been what he wanted."
"I can’t do what you’re asking for."
"What do you think I’m asking?"
"That I slap your face."
"Why don’t you?"
"I can’t pretend an anger I don’t feel," said Roark. "It’s not pity. It’s much more cruel than anything I could do. Only I’m not doing it in order to be cruel. If I slapped your face, you’d forgive me for the Stoddard Temple."
"Is it you who should seek forgiveness?"
"No. You wish I did. You know that there’s an act of forgiveness involved. You’re not clear about the actors. You wish I would forgive you--or demand payment, which is the same thing--and you believe that that would close the record. But, you see, I have nothing to do with it. I’m not one of the actors. It doesn’t matter what I do or feel about it now. You’re not thinking of me. I can’t help you. I’m not the person you’re afraid of just now."
"Who is?"
"Yourself."
"Who gave you the right to say all this?"
"You did."
"Well, go on."
"Do you wish the rest?"
"Go on."
"I think it hurts you to know that you’ve made me suffer. You wish you hadn’t. And yet there’s something that frightens you more. The knowledge that I haven’t suffered at all."
"Go on."
"The knowledge that I’m neither kind nor generous now, but simply indifferent. It frightens you, because you know that things like the Stoddard Temple always require payment--and you see that I’m not paying for it. You were astonished that I accepted this commission. Do you think my acceptance required courage? You needed far greater courage to hire me. You see, this is what I think of the Stoddard Temple. I’m through with it. You’re not."
"What’s the matter, Gail?"
"Good evening, dear. Why?"
"You look happy. That’s not the word. But it’s the nearest."
"’Light’ is nearer. I feel light, thirty years lighter. Not that I’d want to be what I was thirty years ago. One never does. What the feeling means is only a sense of being carried back intact, as one is now, back to the beginning. It’s quite illogical and impossible and wonderful."
"What the feeling usually means is that you’ve met someone. A woman as a rule."
"I have. Not a woman. A man. Dominique, you’re very beautiful tonight. But I always say that. It’s not what I wanted to say. It’s this: I am very happy tonight that you’re so beautiful."
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Fundamental rights be damned
Be it a school, an English newspaper or any industry, we are giving an indication as to what we think they should do
Enjoy
Friday, May 2, 2008
Where is this place?
Mr Punctuality(MP): tomm treat da
MP: @ rainforest at arnd 1 pm
GB: semma da
GB: will you be there on time?
MP: good question
MP: and one more question
MP: do u know where is rain forest ?
GB: I assume
GB: in the tropical regions
GB: where is this rainforest hotel?
GB: gandhinagar?
Teddy: ooh yeah i guess so
Teddy: on the main road...
GB: oho
GB: I don't remember seeing it
GB: weird
Teddy: ur eyes deceive u
GB: bad teddee
Teddy: u have seen parryware ?
GB: of course
GB: I have been
GB: to enough toilets
MP: @ rainforest at arnd 1 pm
GB: semma da
GB: will you be there on time?
MP: good question
MP: and one more question
MP: do u know where is rain forest ?
GB: I assume
GB: in the tropical regions
GB: where is this rainforest hotel?
GB: gandhinagar?
Teddy: ooh yeah i guess so
Teddy: on the main road...
GB: oho
GB: I don't remember seeing it
GB: weird
Teddy: ur eyes deceive u
GB: bad teddee
Teddy: u have seen parryware ?
GB: of course
GB: I have been
GB: to enough toilets
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